ETHICS ARE IMPERATIVE As said by Thomas Kunkel in the article Strengthen, Don t Abandon, the Institutional Editorial, the editorial board represents the considered judgment of many intelligent people, not just one. In other words, they re the wisdom of the crowd. The editorial offers opinion far more dynamic and an inclusive array of perspectives. The publisher of many news businesses come in to dictate the news formal support for another. The ethics of journalism in the editorial section is in question here, what are the ethics and why is it so important that they exist? I want to go into this career field but I want to be apart of something that is worthy of being mentioned and enables me to embrace my talents. Along with the independence of my morals in relation to the ethics that go with this area of work, I want to show that the editorial has much to do with the news put into the media and how they have a responsibility to the public to respect it. It seems as if the ethics are slowly fading and the reason for this is that I don t even think many actually know what ethics are anymore. I am going to show what the ethics are and why they are needed by explaining the multiple privacy breaches, exaggeration, sensationalism, dishonesty, and desperation in the field today that would be prevented if the ethics were reinforced. The reason I feel there needs to be ethics is because of the amount of respect people have for each other s lives and how they go about them. Without regulation, the 1
country would be chaos. So I think journalists need to think about the media the same way in a sense. The ethics of journalism is one of the most defined areas of the media ethics. This is the case because it is taught in schools, and it tends to dominate a lot of areas; even being able to exclude other sections of the media. There are times that dilemmas are had in trying to make certain aspects in journalism be true; especially when it comes to combining elements into an article, conflicting with morals. I found an article called Ethical Journalism Initiative (EJI) ; it s about the renewal of the ethics in journalism. The EJI believes it would help the society, along with trying to restore some order the program wants to make it so that it is bringing people together. It also aims to strengthen press freedom, reinforce quality journalism, and consolidate editorial independence. This article is also in connection with Strengthen, Don t Abandon, the Institutional Editorial by Thomas Kunkel. In this one Kunkel addresses that it is important to have editors because of the perspective they give and how they were either long time reporters or observers with deep community roots. This means that they were the best candidates for the job in representing the media world. Kunkel also says editorials help distinguish newspapers. The EJI fits in with all of my other sources because it covers every aspect of what journalism is, what it should be, or what it shouldn t be in terms of the ethics it began with. This program was also launched while journalism had to adjust to the internal changes and as media faces the extremism of the polarized, to cause to concentrate about two conflicting or contrasting positions, world that we live in. EJI put the ethical conduct back on the media agenda. They re a 2
wake up call to everyone because with these ethics being put back in place. There will be more order and organization with it. Journalism with ethics helps for some people to get their lives back to being their own, and not the worlds. The Editor s Code of Practice by the Press Complaints Commission and the Editorial Guidelines by Betsy Gleick both state the rules and regulations to newspaper and magazine publishing. Both of these describe in depth the ways in which to create a good editor in trying to see what is the best way to go about sources and when it is appropriate to publish. They answer any question a journalist or editor could have. The first one is to be accurate with the information, don t be misleading or distort it. This applies to pictures as well. Today there is no regard for this. There are a lot of misleading photos and published articles that mislead the public. Journalists must be able to distinguish between comment, conjecture, and fact. Also, a fair opportunity for reply to inaccurate must be given when reasonably called for. Privacy, everyone is entitled to respect his or her private and family life, home, health, and correspondence. Now for whatever reasons the world of journalism knows this rule but it is not followed. Journalists also have to be able to explain or justify their reason for invasion of privacy. There must be no harassment, or in other words they cannot intimidate, do not persist in questioning or photographing. In the case of children, young people should be free to complete their time at school without unnecessary intrusion. And children in sex cases, the press must not, net even if legally free to do so, mention their names if under 16 as a victim or witness. Press must not seek to obtain information from hidden cameras or 3
publish it from these sources. Avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual s race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. There also needs to be moral obligation, an obligation arising out of consideration of right and wrong, to protect confidential sources of information. Also, the sources that are obtained need to be verified. No illegal sources make sure the source is who they say they are, and if you cannot verify the accuracy and the provenance of the source then it should not be published. I f done so, there will be consequence, but there doesn t seem like much consequence right now. Some challenges that are faced currently are the ability to reach all of the news that needs to be covered; therefore creating some of the false details that we have in our society s news reporting. With ethics back in place we can make it so that the role of media is to reflect more of an opinion of the people. Provide reliable information from the people of those cultures harder to reach across the globe. This includes the other perspectives that come from the other backgrounds and this increases the interest level of many people involving the news. It basically creates a minimal use of sensationalism in the media, because the media has yet to utilize this aspect when it comes to portraying the global social revolution. EJI says, Sensationalist reporting may help sell papers in an increasingly competitive media environment but it has contributed to an increasingly fearful climate between communities. Instead of raising awareness and challenging ignorance many a media stoke the fires of racism, causing the drama in the media creating falsifying information that comes back to hurt people in the end. EJI is 4
trying to prevent this from happening any longer. They want to destroy this mindset and do a 360 and revert back to following ethics. EJI has set up ways to monitor violations of independent and ethical journalism through surveys and reporting on issues of ethical concern. The EJI have set some things in motion that I have now realized. But again it is something that is not openly out in the public eye yet and I felt that it was an important topic to get people to look into or even consider the idea of ethical journalism because of some of the incidents it has caused in the world to not have ethics. Some will disagree with this topic because they do not believe that it is necessary to have standards or boundaries on the content of the news or media being reported. As I mentioned above in the first paragraph, I want to go into this field but I want to go into a moral field. I do not want to have to lie to get people to read my articles or appreciate my work. I want it to be something people can be proud of to refer back to my sources and information. Journalists and editors should feel the same way. In the article Journalism in America by Dr. Wally Hastings, it says that the first newspaper to fit the modern definition of a newspaper was the New York Herald, founded in 1835 and published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr.. It was the first newspaper to have city staff covering regular beats, the craft of in depth reporting on a particular issue and spot news, news on the spot, along with regular business and Wall Street coverage. This newspaper covered real news, and since it was spot news there was no way they could edit it or even sensationalize it because it was on the spot. The only 5
problem with this was that there would be so many perspectives because of the fact that everyone sees things different. What can you really do with spot on news, but to report it the way it is happening at that moment? The New York dailies continued to redefine journalism. James Bennett's Herald, for example, didn't just write about the disappearance of David Livingstone in Africa; they sent Henry Stanley to find him, which he did, in Uganda. The success of Stanley's stories prompted Bennett to hire more of what would turn out to be investigative journalists. With this way of journalism the ethics stay intact because you are exposed to a lot more of the information, so the information is confirmable. And referring back to the Code of Practice, the sources would be easier to verify because of the journalist being there himself. Journalists can compare sources to each other and against what they happened to witness as well. Also along with making sure that the sources are legitimate because you are talking to people who were involved and there is also a resolution being achieved here. There are several examples of how ethics can be questioned and how it can come down to how people view the ethics of journalism. News manipulation is a big one. It is when you take a topic in the news and form it into something it is not by using key words and making the content sound offensive or mock like. News reporters say that sometimes manipulation cannot be avoided. It is very subtle and some do not even realize that they are being manipulated by the news. This goes back to spot news because news manipulation can be eliminated, how can you manipulate something that is as new to you as the audience? No one wants to be manipulated in the wrong way, it 6
ruins peoples images and sometimes careers. Another simple one would be the truth alone. It conflicts with many values that go through editors minds as they publish. The truth is a very powerful thing in relation to reporting news because if you report the wrong information then you could get sued or have worse consequences. At times I do not think this is something that is realized among many journalists. People are getting smart and actually deciding to press charges for falsifying information in the media. No one is checking their sources or proof reading what is being published. Public interest is growing to be something controversial. Public interest has to do with what would be for the well being of the general public. The revelation of military secrets and other government information may be contrary to the public interest, even if it is true. And another reason that it strikes people as being controversial is because of the images that can be shown on TV that can affect younger people and the audiences. Images can be very disturbing and mentally confusing to the public, especially if they are not fully understood. Sometimes there is not enough information to help people understand it in the first place. An editor s job is to check sources and see if they can get more information about the incident that is being reported. It is part of their job to make sure that the story is something that people will understand or even be able to handle as a society, social responsibility. It is an ethical ideology or theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. 7
Privacy again is the perfect example of why we should have ethics. A salacious detail of a figure s life that people may look up is a central content element in many media. Even if the details may be true it does not mean that you should share the information. Ethically you have to know when something is right or wrong. Personally I think this is what separates the good editors from the ones trying to get the next new gossip; this ties in with taking photos of them as well. Referring back to the Code of Practice and Editorial Guidelines, no harassment or invading privacy. And if this were to happen you need to justify why you did it. The photo may show true facts but if it is inappropriate for the public eye, do not deliberately ruin someone else s life for the sake of being the one to report it. It is in bad taste and your reputation could be at stake as well. Privacy is a right, and unfortunately it interferes with free speech. Free speech has been a right for a long time and most people take advantage of that in the wrong ways. The ethics should be followed so that people can still have some part of their life that is theirs to cherish. Ethics exist in the first place so that editors and newspapers will be taken seriously. There should be information that cannot be falsified. There is a lot of effort put into newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts, etc. and people don t want to be pointed out as the ones who are dishonest. They become untrustworthy sources. In Journalism Ethics and Law by the Air University it talks about how there are certain things that as a journalist you should know walking into the field. It also talks about how free press has tremendous power, if power is defined as the capacity to influence 8
others. The reason I bring up this source is because it addresses the editorial lapses that occur in journalism. I mentioned sources becoming untrustworthy. When reporters have invented information, editors have accepted payments from sources, and news organizations decide to publish ads in the guise of news, the public has the right to question everything in the media. All journalists and news organizations suffer when journalists behave unethical. The behavior calls the professions credibility into question. When credibility suffers the organizations ability to survive in the economy is evident. This also regards the independence of an editor. How much independence? In an article called Editorial Independence and Ethics of Research Publication by Arash Etemadi, he describes how journalists are in need of independence. It also gives examples of what journalism used to be. A report in 2002 by Davis and Mullner showed that among editors of 33 journals owned by non for profit organizations, 23 enjoyed complete editorial freedom and the remaining 10 scored their level of independence as high. Within the article saying this it also showed how much more successful the newspapers that had complete independence were to the ones with high independence. The big difference is that the editors with complete independence don t have to listen to the journal owner and their biases about a certain article or story. The breach of privacy goes out to the celebrities, they are just as much regular people as we are; they just happen to have a bigger income than us. The intimate details of someone s life are always at disposal it seems. The social network especially gives a lot of access to that. In an article called Privacy, the Media, and the Internet by Becky 9
Hogge, it describes how the social networks are like having a personal spread in a magazine. To her we have no privacy. It is questioning if it is even our privacy. Hogge quotes columnist Zoe Williams, so new technology has also introduced the panopticon of total surveillance by the state. In this sense, our privacy fears are not just well founded, they require urgent action. Here what is being said is that we never know when our lives are going to be a spectacle for the world. Editors have the power to save people from being ridiculed, exposed, ruined, etc. and it does not seem like that is happening. More gossip is getting released in the news, and a lot of it is being proven wrong. This fact here should be enough to let people know that at least 50% of what is published is going to be wrong or exaggerated just to appeal to the drama in everyday life. It s in comparison to adding fluff in a research paper; it s just there to fill up the extra space. The Ethical Journalism Initiative (EJI) says that online journalism must be ethical too. User Generated Content (UGC) as it is called is often described as a nightmare for ethical journalist. UGC is when people who have access to mobile cameras or digital cameras and take pictures at an incident being reported by a news media cast, but posts the pictures themselves online. It raises a lot of questions about who could be responsible for the images, who is liable for the damage being caused by these images, is there any ethical standard that can be applied to the web material, etc. It causes problems because people do not think public interest. Also in an article called Ethic Codes for Blogs by David D. Perlmutter it mentions how it is hard for bloggers to create ethics for themselves because there is so much that happens on the internet for 10
them to follow specific rules. Then they question how they are supposed to go about a situation in which they break a rule. If I break a rule, what do I do, fire myself? seems to be the question they tend to be stuck on. In Editorial Independence, Etemadi states that in 1999, the editor of Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) was embarrassed because he published a report which concluded that US college students did not think of oral sex as having sex. This article was independently peer reviewed, revised and accepted in accordance with journal policies. The editor s fast tracking, the quickest and most direct route to achievement of a goal as in competing for professional advancement, of the article s publication caused it to coincide with the Congressional impeachment proceedings involving President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair. In these proceedings, President Clinton s interpretation of having sex was a matter of contention. This is a perfect example of being conscious of right and wrong and knowing when not to publish information. It clearly states that it was not properly looked over before being published. In this case it interfered with a political public image. Even though the information may have been truthful and revealing insight, you have to think about the events happening in the world. People are going to relate what is in the news to real life events. The exaggeration in the media is also something that the editor should be looking closer at. It is as if they are so desperate to get people to be interested in what they show so they can get notoriety. I was looking online to see if I could find some 11
aspects of exaggeration in the media and one came up about the amount of poverty in the U.S. and they presented it as a severe material hardship. TV news thrives on drama so the reporters naturally seek out the starkest, most sympathetic examples to build the most compelling stories. The normal view of poverty just isn t interesting enough for them to show. Again, here is an example of the editorial overlooking these details. It is clearly stated in the Code of Practice to not publish inaccurate, misleading information. This information qualifies as misleading. They made the poverty level seem worse than it was, giving people the wrong idea about the economy. It s as if they don t care enough to go back and get the facts of the story or check the sources. It is embarrassing to have other people come and say that this information is wrong. What is supposed to be said to this kind of confrontation? And you cannot avoid the questions because it also says in the Code of Practice that there needs to be given a fair opportunity for reply on inaccuracies. Here is a perfect example of ethics not playing a role in the editorial process. The 911 call of the George Zimmerman Lynching, the non emergency call he made the night before. An unreported fact of this investigation, that seemed to once again get overlooked, was the almost foolishly transparent way Zimmerman cooperated with police. Apparently there were edited tapes that were aired on NBC of the call. There should have been someone who questioned where the tapes came from or listened to them prior to being aired. Sources were not checked and this made NBC look bad in the end. They were very dishonest. But as stated before, the news thrives on drama. Always 12
check the validity of the sources, no illegal sources. And with this little fact, I think many editors overseeing these things happen to be a way to keep their jobs. The ethics don t seem to apply anymore, and they know the rules, it is something that is taught. Unfortunately through my research I have found an article called Is Sensationalism Really That Bad? that is controversial. On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart talks about how sensationalism has been around for a long time. Sensationalism is the aspect of the news that is used to draw in attention from the public. He says that it is unavoidable in this day and age. There needs to be some way of grabbing the audiences attention. We are wired to be alert to sensation, especially to those of sex and violence. Along with this news I think editors should be conscious of how much sensationalism is going into their work. Some stories are based off of that aspect alone. There should be a story and a part of it that catches the attention. The part that catches the attention should actually be in the news report; this way people don t get disappointed or even angry about what was not in the article. Ethics need to be in place so that this is ensured, because eventually people are just going to say that news isn t true and they only make up things to make money, the real issues aren t being portrayed. My sources that I have addressed work together with each other in which ethics seem to have gone out the window; but should be put back in place. The ethics are not hard to follow, but they are also not hard to break either. The EJI states that through ethical journalism we can identify the roots of division in society, put a focus on the potential to challenge the information deficits which contribute to ignorance and 13
misunderstanding. Above anything else we can reinvigorate attachment to the core ideals of mission in journalism, truth telling, independence, public interest, professional responsibility, and the need to communicate ethic which promotes discussion. 14
Cited Works Etemadi, A., Golozar, A., & Malekzadeh, R. (2010). Editorial independence and ethics of research publication Academy of Medical Sciences of I.R. Iran. Gleick, B. (2012). Editorial Guidelines. Time Inc. Hastings, W. Dr. (2010). Journalism in America Wikipedia. Northern state University, South Dakota. Hogge, B. (2008). Privacy, the Media, and the Internet New Statesman Ltd. Kunkel, T. (2008). Strengthen, don t abandon, the institutional editorial National Conference of Editorial writers. Perlmutter, D. D., & Schoen, M. (2007). If I break a rule, what do I do, fire myself? ethics codes of independent blogs. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 37 48. Press Complaints Commission. (2011). Code of Practice. Halton House, 20/23 Holbom, London EC1N 2JD. Rachel (2008). Ethical Journalism Initiative International Federation of Journalists. International Press Centre. Rogers, T. (2010). Jon Stewart Blasts Sensationalism in the News Media, but is it Really So Bad? About.com, Journalism. The Air University. (2010). Journalism Ethics and Law. 15